Is Icahn Pushing Apple to buy Nuance or Netflix in Letter to Tim Cook?

If Carl Icahn is going to push Apple to buy one of his holdings, it has to be Nuance (NUAN). Here’s why:

Icahn owns 19.2% of Nuance, or $1.14 billion worth, and his son Brett is on the board. That’s big.

Also, Nuance has a market cap of $4.7 billion and an enterprise value of $6.2 billion; Apple has around $37.7 billion in cash, so they could easily buy the company for a significant premium.

In Netflix (NFLX), not only has Icahn reduced his stake and sold some of his shares this year, but he only owns $777 million and does not have the same type of board representation as he does at Nuance. Netflix also has a $28 billion market cap, so it would cost Apple $30 billion-plus (with a buyout premium) to buy Netflix. That’s too rich.